Pangs of Freedom

By Bhagirath Yogi

Two months after being declared `free,’ kamaiya families are yet to adjust to the new realities. And, the government has done little to support them in their need of hour

Raj Kumar Dangaura Tharu, 24, and his family in Kailali district in far-western Nepal could not believe to what they had heard. They had rushed to district headquarters in mid-July as soon as they heard that the government had declared all the kamaiya (bonded laborers) free. Raj Kumar was even astonished to know that he would not have to pay nearly 20,000 rupees as ‘saunki’ (debt) that he inherited from his grandfather. But he did not know what to do next. Within a couple of days, his `kisan’ (landlord) approached him and ordered him to vacate his mud-thatched hut. “Vacate this hut immediately, otherwise police will put me behind bars,” said his master. He even abused the government for waiving ‘saunki’ that his ‘kamaiya’ owed to him. He forced Raj Kumar to pay a couple of hundred rupees that he had with him at the moment.

Accompanied by his family, Raj Kumar then left for district headquarters, Dhangadhi. There, he found hundreds of newly freed kamaiyas like him looking for food and shelter. With the help of local non-government organizations like BASE, CCS, Nepal Red Cross and some government agencies, make-shift camps were erected in the district headquarters overnight. In the middle of the monsoon, it was a difficult thing to do. Most of the former Kamaiya families did not have utensils to cook food, enough clothes to put on and even a charpoy to accommodate their family members. There were no toilet and sanitation facilities.

This resulted into outbreak of diseases like encephalitis and diarrhea. A team of health workers put together by BASE checked most of them and provided them with some medicines. Some of them were even referred to district hospitals. According to organizations coordinating the relief works, several kamaiya families living in these camps suffered from these diseases including encephalitis.

There had been mismatch on part of the government right from the beginning. Though it declared nearly 16,000 kamaiya families, concentrated in five western districts of the country, free on July 17 this year amidst intense pressure from the opposition parties and activists, it was not prepared for the future action. “In fact, we seem to have made the decision in hurry,” admits Siddha Raj Ojha, Minister for Land Reforms and Management. “In any case, the government is committed to provide relief to the newly freed kamaiyas and rehabilitate them as soon as possible with the help of the local non-governmental and international agencies.”

The government set up a high-level coordination committee under the convenorship of Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel comprising concerned ministers and senior bureaucrats. Five committees have been set up in Dang, Banke, Bardia, Kailali and Kanchanpur districts under the convenorship of the chairman of the concerned district development committee (DDCs), the popularly elected local bodies.

“We have allocated Rs 200,000 ( approx. US$ 3000) each to all five districts to carry out initial relief works,” said Krishna Raj Adhikari, spokesman at the Ministry of Land Reforms and Management (MLRM). “ We are also planning to provide at least one `kattha’ of land (about the size of a volleyball court) to each family of former kamaiya in which they could construct their houses and grow vegetables.”

Aid workers, however, warn that resettling marginal people into the marginal land won’t help solve the problem. “By providing one or two `katthas’ of land to kamaiyas in reclaimed land will not help break the vicious cycle of poverty in which the kamaiyas are living,” said Bharat Devkota of Save the Children/US. “It should provide up to ten katthas of land, not in the area prone to flood, as it has promised to landless squatters.”

A number of aid agencies joined their hands to provide relief to the former kamaiyas as soon as they were declared free. In fact, some of them were already supporting the freedom of kamaiya movement launched by some NGOs at the grassroots level. According to available information, Action Aid Nepal has provided relief materials worth Rs 400,000. The SC/US has also provided materials worth Rs 450,000. ADRA/Nepal has provided relief materials worth US$ 10,000.00. to more than 1100 families. Nepal office of Lutheran World Service (LWS) said kamaiyas were one of the target groups of its programs in Kailali district. “We feel strong moral obligation to mobilize assistance to the kamaiyas,” said Allen Armstrong of LWS. The LWS has already made an appeal to its donors to provide 25,000 dollars to be used in the relief works for kamaiyas. Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) has provided relief materials worth Rs 120,000 to former kamaiyas in Kanchanpur district. “As we have focused more on providing relief to the victims of natural disaster we haven’t been able to do much for the (former) kamaiyas,” said Tirtha Raj Onta, executive director of the NRCS. “But we may even contribute to long-term rehabilitation works if we can mobilize more resources.”

The United Nations agencies are also coming into the fray to support newly liberated kamaiyas. The International Labor Organization (ILO)’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) has entered into an agreement with the District Development Committee of Kailali and Kanchanpur, which will be receiving 350,000 rupees each. The program has provision for education facilities for school going children, coaching classes and temporary child literacy classes for non-school going children. The funds will also be used for providing mid-day meals for 300 displaced children in each district, officials said.

Though belatedly, officials are waking up to the urgency to provide relief to the kamaiyas. A high-level government committee, in its meeting in the third week of September, has decided to launch an emergency food assistance program for the former ‘kamaiyas’ (bonded laborers) in Kailali and Kanchanpur districts and assign officials to distribute the relief materials in a planned and transparent manner. The kamaiya identification and rehabilitation central coordination and monitoring committee, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel, also recommended the government to include representatives of Nepal Red Cross Society, INGOs and NGOs in the central and district level committees, immediately start distributing identification cards to the homeless kamaiyas and establish a regional office in Nepalgunj to coordinate the kamaiya skill development and rehabilitation program in a planned manner.

Minister for Land Reforms and Management, Siddha Raj Ojha, said the government had set up Kamaiya Welfare Trusts (KWT), to be headed by President of the respective District Development Committees, in Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang districts. The Trusts would be responsible for channeling the funds provided for the rehabilitation of the kamaiyas. He said the government has already introduced a bill in the Parliament to ban the practice of kamaiya.

The district land reforms office in Dang distributed two katthas of land each to 40 former kamaiyas on September 4. The KWT in Dang district had bought five bighas of land to be distributed to the former kamaiyas. “Now the former kamaiyas should use this land to build their houses and other productive and vocational usage,” said Bharat K. C., President of Dang DDC.

Brought up as agricultural laborers, former kamaiyas usually don’t have other skills than to work in the fields. The government has been training them, into different groups, with different vocational skills such as basket weaving, wood carving etc. But most of them haven’t succeeded in launching their own vocations.

Experts say kamaiyas are closely associated with lands. They can use even a small piece of land in the most judicious way. Once they have land, only then can look for other alternative means of employment. “As soon as the government provides them lands aid agencies can start long-term rehabilitation measures,” said an aid worker.

Though officials say they would like to work in close coordination with the aid workers, agencies involved in providing relief to the former kamaiyas say otherwise. “The government is not exhibiting the responsiveness, that it was supposed to do, at least at the district level,” said Devkota.

A total of 37 camps have been set up for in Kailai and Kanchanpur districts for former kamaiyas. Out of nearly 2400 families evicted from their previous huts and land in these two districts, nearly 1200 are living in these camps. The rest are living with their relatives or friends.

According to reports, roofing (plastic sheets) in these camps by the government and largely by the NGOs. Underneath the roof is bare ground. Only a few families have charpoy with them whereas majority of them has to sleep on the wet ground. Their biological need as well as family environment remain unfulfilled. “The relief work has been very ad-hoc in nature and those camps, which are near the district headquarters, are receiving attention,” said a team of aid workers that visited the sites recently. While some camps have access to safe drinking water through hand pumps most of them are using soiled water from the river.

The food for work program launched by the local DDCs too impractical, reports said. The project in Kanchanpur is focused around certain areas within the town whereas in Kailali, 18 projects have been identified for this purpose, local officials said. While the road construction sties in the forest area were too far from the camps, the quality of such works was also low.

There is need for relief work in the camps until the government announces its rehabilitation plan. The freed kamaiyas need to be organized continuously and alliance of NGOs working locally needs to strengthen their relief operation mechanism. There is a need to constantly update information of freed kamaiyas who are in camps and with relatives and friends, the aid workers said.

Spokesman at the MLRM, K. R. Adhikari, said the government had asked its officials to update the latest number of former kamaiyas. “We are also on the final stage of distributing identification cards to them,” he said. According to a 1995 study conducted by the Ministry, there were more than 83,000 members in nearly 15,000 kamaiya families in these five districts (See: Box). Of them, nearly, 7000 families had neither house nor a piece of land. “We will give top priority to such families,” said Adhikari. NGOs involved in the freedom movement of kamaiyas, however, say the number of former kamaiyas could be as high as 200,000.

The government’s kamaiya registration program is full of flaws, said critics. They don’t have enough time to sit with local village development committee and ward members to confirm the identity of former kamaiyas. They have not also made any attempt to use records or expertise of local NGOs who have been working with kamaiyas. The result is that many of the people being registered are reportedly not kamaiyas at all, and many people who are kamaiyas are not getting registered. Reports said some daily wage laborers and even political workers have reportedly registered themselves as kamaiyas anticipating free land. Land Reforms Officer at Kailali, Maheswor Niraula, admitted that up to 40 percent of the forms may have been filled by non-kamaiyas.

“It is feared that this will cause serious problems in the future if the lists being made now are going to be the basis for rehabilitation,” said Tim Whyte, a Danish volunteer, working with BASE.

Besides identifying genuine kamaiyas from the fake ones, the government needs to have a long-term program to rehabilitate kamaiyas on a permanent way. The MLRM, in its proposal distributed to different aid agencies, urged the interested donors to consider supporting one or other activities related to rescue and rehabilitation of the former kamaiyas. Some of the key activities identified by the government for rehabilitation (as middle term action) include support for development of low cost housing, support for education and health care of emancipated kamaiyas and their children, implement development work where unskilled kamaiyas could be employed, and micro credit schemes for kamaiyas, among others.

The Ministry has calculated the cost estimates for rescue operation at 0.56 million (including temporary roofing, supplying of food grains, utensils, medicines, primary schooling and day time meals for school going age children. Similarly, the estimate for rehabilitation operations have been estimated at US$ 10.25 million including costs involved for constructing low-cost housing for 8700 families, support for education and health care, skill development training and revolving fund for micro-credit schemes. While the government is expected to finance up to Rs 205 million for the rehabilitation program, the rest (that is nearly 676 million rupees, or roughly 10 million US dollars) has been expected to be financed through external support.

“The donors would be interested to support the rescue and rehabilitation program only if the government exhibited adequate commitment for the rehabilitation of the kamaiyas,” said an office-bearer with an international aid agency. Whether the government exhibits the same remains to be seen.

District Number of kamaiyas

Kailali 5557 families

Bardia 5037 ,,

Dang 1856 ,,

Kanchanpur 1642 ,,

Banke 1060 ,,

(Source, MLRM, 1995)